Jury out in Diaz case

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A photographer who tried to sell Hollywood star Cameron Diaz
topless pictures he took of her when she was an unknown model is a
con artist who hoped for a quick payoff, prosecutors said
today.

A jury in Los Angeles began weighing photographer John Rutter's
guilt after prosecutor David Walgren told the jury in Los Angeles
that he had targeted the blonde bombshell for a $US3 million
($A3.93 million) blackmail scam.

"She was ... the target of his scam and his con ... He's hoping
for a quick payoff, a very quick payoff by ratcheting up the
pressure," the prosecutor said before the jury began deliberating
on Rutter's fate.

Rutter is accused of presenting Diaz with a forged model release
form apparently bearing her signature when he offered to sell her
the bare-breasted pictures for $US3.5 million ($A4.58 million).

The Los Angeles-based photographer gave Diaz two days to come up
with the hefty sum of money in return for not selling the photos he
had taken 11 years earlier to anyone else "based on a forged
document", Walgren said.

Dozens of pictures purportedly signed by Diaz, including a
publicity photo that a handwriting expert said was used to
"cut-and-paste" her signature onto the model release form, were
found on Rutter's computer, Walgren said.

"This con artist does his homework ... He satisfied himself that
he had a legitimate signature," Walgren said, telling jurors that
Rutter was the only person with a motive to forge the model
release.

Rutter is charged with attempted grand theft, forgery of the
model release form and perjury in relation with the 2003 attempt to
sell the pictures to the Something About Mary star.

But the photographer's lawyer Mark Werksman said in his closing
arguments that Rutter had no idea the model release form was forged
and that he had simply tried to give Diaz first refusal on the sale
of the pictures.

The lawyer said the photographer had assumed that the release -
which he claims he directed an assistant to collect during the 1992
photo shoot - was valid.

Diaz had been "happy to get the publicity when she was an
unknown" and clothed photos that Rutter had taken of her had
appeared in magazines in France and Greece in the 1990s.

But 11 years later, the now world-famous star of films including
Charlie's Angels wanted to be in control and "crush" Rutter,
Werksman told the jury.

"That's what's changed in 11 years, not Mr Rutter's right to
sell the photos," he said.

Werksman insisted there was no proof that Rutter had either
forged the form or knew it was a phoney, saying that someone else
who worked at Rutter's studio could have "manipulated the data in
those computers".

During the trial, jurors were told that Rutter threatened to
sell the photographs taken in an abandoned Los Angeles warehouse
when she was a 19-year-old model to the highest bidder unless she
agreed to pay him.

Jurors spent about two and half hours weighing the arguments
today and are due back in court on Monday to continue
deliberations.

A charge of extortion was thrown out ahead of the criminal
trial, which began last week.